While cleaning, take steps to avoid hantavirus

If your summer trip to the lake house, cabin or campground shelter includes a bit of clean-up, Spokane Regional Health District officials remind you to take precautions against a virus spread by deer mice.

Deer mice can carry hantavirus, which can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, a form of adult respiratory disease.

Infected mice can spread the virus through their urine, saliva and droppings. People can be exposed to hantavirus by breathing the dust after cleaning rodent droppings or disturbing nests, or by living or working in rodent-infested settings.

Symptoms of hantavirus infection usually begin one to three weeks after exposure to infected deer mice. HPS is characterized by fever, chills and severe muscle aches, followed by abrupt onset of respiratory distress and shortness of breath. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The chance of contracting hantavirus is relatively low, health officials said. In Washington, about 14 percent of more than 1,100 deer mice tested for the virus were positive.

Still, it’s worth taking precautions to avoid infection, said Dr. Kim Thorburn, health officer for the health district.

New hospital garage adds 407 spaces

Sacred Heart Medical Center’s newest parking garage opened Monday, with 407 new parking spaces for the public, employees and doctors at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and McClellan Street, officials said. A skywalk on the sixth floor of the garage connects to the medical center’s main floor for easy access.

The five-level structure is built to allow for four more levels to be added in the future, hospital officials said. The first two floors are reserved for Sacred Heart staff, with a separate entrance for the public on the third level.

The new parking will be handy for patients and visitors coming to the Surgery Center, the Women’s Health Center and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on the west end of the medical campus.

The Sacred Heart center now totals about 2.1 million square feet of occupied space. City code requires the hospital to have 2,200 car parks for the size; currently there are 3,717 spaces available.

Bouten Construction Co. is the general contractor for the $6 million project.

KMC rehabilitation center open again

Kootenai Medical Center has hired a new director to oversee the hospital’s acute inpatient rehabilitation program, which is reopening after remodeling.

Dr. Mike Meythaler will direct the center, which is a separate, independent entity housed within the KMC campus. Meythaler is both a physiatrist – a doctor board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation – and a doctor of internal medicine. He operated a family practice for 14 years in Wisconsin, hospital officials said.

The Kootenai Rehabilitation Center, known as KRC, was closed in March for construction to create 14 new patient rooms, a relocated nursing center and decorative amenities. Patients were admitted to the remodeled center starting July 1 for intensive speech, occupational and physical rehabilitation.

KRC is within the hospital, but classified by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as an independent rehabilitation facility. When patients are transferred from KMC, they are discharged from the hospital and then admitted to KRC.

For more information about the new center or KMC, visit www.kmc.org

Staff writer JoNel Aleccia can be reached at (509) 459-5460 or by e-mail at jonela@spokesman.com